I don't doubt that some of the "Judge Sotomayor just isn't smart enough to be a justice" criticism is racially tinged. It's probably sexist, too. But I'm not writing to defend Sonia Sotomayor — I'm writing to defend Clarence Thomas (who I am distinctly not a fan of).
Because, of course, on the left — and in the rush to defend Sotomayor — there is crap like this at the Huffington Post:
game about picking only the best and ignoring racial considerations.
Eighteen years ago, Thomas was considered by many to be a lightweight
who only got in because Thurgood Marshall was leaving, and Republicans
wanted credit for appointing an African American to replace him. They
denied this, of course, and said Thomas would go on to greatness. Two
decades later, we're still waiting for the guy to ask a question,
author a memorable opinion, or be anything other than Antonin Scalia's
sidekick.
First, point out that Justice Thomas was appointed because he's black, wrongly suggesting that this means he was appointed only because he's black, i.e. that his race was his sole qualification.
Second, mock his silence at oral arguments. I'm actually more concerned with judges — especially judges with the tremendous resources that SCOTUS Justices have — changing their minds based on which side has the more articulate litigator at oral arguments, but that's just me. In any event, no one has ever suggested a plausible theory on how Thomas's lack of questions at oral arguments is meaningfully probative of his intelligence, and I'd be surprised by a compelling argument in favor of it revealing anything about his quality as a judge. Cubias (the HuffPo author) certainly doesn't give us anything along those lines here. Just point it out condescendingly, hope the reader understands the meaning.
Third, well, obviously he must be Nino's stupid sidekick. They're both conservative after all, but Scalia was there first and he's snarky at oral arguments and has written lots of sarcastic and angry dissents in which he is lauded for his style (by lawyers who are terrible writers and have probably never read a word of Atwood or Conrad) for his overuse of italics to emphasize lots of phrases. Scalia is just so damn glib! Plus Scalia's the white one. Ignore all those times where Thomas has disagreed with Scalia. Ignore all those times where Thomas has gotten it substantially more right than Scalia. From what I've seen, Thomas is actually more consistent, which means that he's also more intellectually honest on the bench, if you care about those things. I'd also note here that with respect to this nonsense about "memorable opinions," this disparity isn't really there from a lawyer's perspective, and from a non-lawyer's perspective no one on the current Court wrote Roe, Brown, or Miranda (Kennedy did give us Lawrence, but his talent for getting the juicy opinions lies more with his supermedian-justice status).
Fourth? Okay, Cubias only did one through three. But I want to put as four here, "Look like a racist." This is really a cumulative thing: 1 + 2 + 3 = 4. This line of attack on Justice Thomas is a fiction designed to discredit or trivialize him, and I'm sick of seeing it.
It would be nice, as liberals seek to defend Sonia Sotomayor from unfounded attacks, if they wouldn't rehash the unfounded, racist attacks on Clarence Thomas.
Accidental Blogger 
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